The present invention relates to a shaker with an outer container and with an inner container movable therein, for dispensing a granular or powdery sprinkled material from a storage space formed in the inner container through a sieve arranged in the dispensing opening of the shaker.
Devices of the type in question are known from the documents EP 0 526 706 A2 and U.S. Pat. No. 2,294,393. The devices disclosed therein are used, for example, for the dispensing and dosing of powdery medicaments. The inner container is freely movable inside the outer container in order to be able to execute movements of its own when the outer container is shaken, as a consequence of which, when the inner container strikes hard against the inner face of the outer wall of the outer container, the resulting shock pulse carries over to the powdery medicament located in the inner container. The powdery medicament in the inner container thus comes loose and trickles from an opening located in the inner container into the outer container and from there also out of the outer container. A sieve can be located in this case in the dispensing opening of the inner container and/or in the dispensing opening of the outer container.
This way of releasing a sprinkled material, through the movement of an inner container, and dispensing it from the shaker has not proven suitable for all types of sprinkled material. In particular, sprinkled materials that are used for the domestic preparation of meals, for example flour, icing sugar or condiments, tend to form lumps that are not loosened again simply by agitation of the shaker. Thus, sprinkled materials of these kinds can be suitably dosed only with difficulty when they are sprinkled using such devices. For such sprinkled materials, therefore, shakers with an inner container and an outer container are not used, and instead use is made of shakers in which a movable delivery element is moved across a sieve. The particles to be sprinkled are in this case moved across the sieve surface by the delivery element, caught by the material webs of the sieve and pressed by the delivery element into the sieve openings, from which the particles then fall from the shaker. Examples of such shakers are found in document EP 0 205 935 A1 or DE 83 32 094.6. In these devices, however, the delivery element is in each case driven by complex mechanisms which are difficult to keep clean and are susceptible to defects.
The object of the present invention is to create a shaker in which the sieving device has a drive means that is simple to operate and easy to clean.